Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Books At Midnight: Weekly Debate: Posting Schedule

If you go over to Books At Midnight, you will see that instead of a weekly poll, Jenn has started a weekly debate. Her question of the week is this:

Bloggers, when do you think is the best time to post: morning, noon, evening? Readers, when do you like to see a blogger post?

My initial reaction is that it doesn't matter, but I think that's because I tend to not notice schedules and don't hold other people to them. My own personal preference used to be to write my posts and check for other posts first thing in the morning, but then I started sleeping in, or a crisis or two would happen in the morning, and I had to move my posting/reading time to later in the day. At the moment, I'm digging my evening hours in the blogging world as a way of unwinding from my day, but I'm sure that will change when I've had a bad day and don't feel like posting at night... For me personally, I hadn't given much thought to whether my readers would be upset or turned off if I didn't post during a particular time. But then Jenn brought up an interesting point in her take on the debate: Does the time of day you post affect your ability to get comments from readers? So now I'm questioning my own posting habits and wondering if they should be more regular.

What is your take on the debate?

While I welcome your comments on the debate here, I also encourage you to check out the original over at Books At Midnight and also leave a comment there (or even provide a link to your own posting on the debate).

6 comments:

Hmm, I never really thought about it. I am subscribed to 5 or 6 blogs that I follow regularly. Some are regimented posters and others are more random. I find that it doesn't much matter to me. I look forward to the daily regulars and then I also like the "surprise" factor of getting an email from the non-regimented bloggers alerting me to a new post.

After writing about the debate, I started poking around and found that many people had trouble keeping their following if they strayed from their normal posting schedule; however, I think they were referring to a schedule that dictated how many posts they wrote in a week or month and not *when* they actually posted them. It seems some blog readers are not so forgiving, but I treat blogs as icing--fun things I get to read on subjects I care about that can get conversations started. If someone doesn't post, I don't feel hurt or upset or anything--I'm like you in that I simply look forward to the next one. I find it interesting that other readers have more stringent expectations of bloggers' posting schedules.

I'm the same way, Billy. I just check my "blog reader" to see what the new posts are and which ones I want to read--it doesn't occur to me to go directly to the blog and on a specific day at a specific time because I expect something to be posted. I also read enough blogs that there isn't a day where something new isn't posted, and to be quite honest, I don't even notice when some of my favorites don't post for days (or even weeks). I just get excited when I see they've posted something new, regardless of when they do it. I'm glad to hear my readers tend to be more lenient since my posting schedule is often a bit erratic...

Sorry I posted so late! Thanks for posting about this. Hm, that's also what I originally thought, but I've just noticed that there can be no comments then all of a sudden, at a specific time, there's a huge influx of comments! I just thought it was interesting and worth checking out. Overall, I usually check what's on my Google reader, and I usually go back and look around at some blogs. I definitely don't mind an erratic scehdule because mine pretty much is as well, lol! I fail miserably at scheduling posts in advance.

I have noticed, though, that visitors tend to go down over the weekend--even when a new post is up. I'm starting to think most blog readers and M-F readers, which seems counter-intuitive to me. I would think the weekends would be better times to catch up on blog reading. It's all very interesting.

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... a blog that celebrates my own 'joy of reading' in the hopes that what I share will inspire you to think about your reading journey and, in turn, share tidbits from your reading experiences with me.

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My love for reading started at a young age, and I blame reading late at nights with dim lights for the demise of my eyesight. Yet I still read. In dim lighting, bright lighting, and any lighting in between. Our apartment is filled with bookcases, and most of those bookcases are filled with my memories, as every book I read becomes part of my life. A well-written book is a friend, an escape, a conversation-starter, and a life-changer. I write about the books, authors, and bits of language that have helped to shape me in the hopes that I may share my 'joie de lire' with others.